Chives ahoy, stitching and rescue reminder

May 8, 1945. VE day. I was six, lived in a street like this, in a town like this,  and we had teaparties in the street like this. With tea! English kids, tea drinkers from an early age. Note the moms in their pinnies, one with her copper tea kettle, ready to do tea warm ups.

Normally women wouldn't be seen in the street in their work aprons, but when you're serving a streetful  of kids, large families then, with cake and sandwiches and tea, you need your pinny.

My mom kept reminding me it wasn't over. There was still Japan. She wasn't up for celebrating, one son lost in combat, one recovering in hospital in North Africa, one about to be in the middle East at the founding of Israel. But kids had a great time. 

Back to the present.

The chives have flowered, despite beating rain and wind

And the stitching continues. You'll see a couple of the original threads are gone. As I progressed, I decided they were out of character for what I was trying to do. They'd served their purpose to delineate sections, and I removed them, lightening up the whole thing.

Still a long way to go. I'm stitching all over at once, moving from section to section to keep the design and stitches and colors balanced. 

Now and then I look at images just to remember shapes and colors, not to copy, just look at. Here's one I've been studying today for ideas and colors

It's a lovely sight even if you don't need it as reference.

And if you need study references, here are some murine mycologists

Happy day everyone, off to walk in the warm again sun.

And remember May is the month of kittens, many born around now, shelters packed. Good time if you were thinking of adopting a kitten. Adopt don't shop!

Tuesday knitting group, Textiles and Tea

 Tuesday I dropped off my ballot in the dropbox 

Then on to the knitting group nearby in the library, only two today, but here's the table set up with books to borrow.

Talk ranged over making hats, embroidery, Maryland Sheep and Wool last weekend, freezing weather, gardening, Misfits market, local farm CSA and more.

Home to Textiles and Tea with a spinning wheel restorer, John Sturtevant. Not being at all into spinning wheels, I was surprised at how interesting I found it, largely because of his love for what he does and his love of learning. And what a range of wheel designs.

this is his wife Kathy, testing restored wheels before they go back to their owners. She originally got him interested in wheels repair and restoration.

Here's a trolley wheel, really unusual, which he demonstrated on video.

His website is on the id slide, for more info.

Then I got back to my embroidery, which is my happy place just now 

A range of stitches, some improvised, and I'm starting to see what I'm doing here.,and what needs to happen next. Wednesday is always quiet, so it may be a stitching day.

Happy day everyone, do your own happy stuff if you can. Sometimes in hard times it can be only a fleeting experience, but worth looking for. I know this is true right now for some blogistas. I see you. Been there too.

Stitching plain and fancy, voting

 I finally got around to repairing Gary's window sail. It's silk and a bit fragile, probably because it's been in the sun,  so it was tricky. 

I restitched one end to cover the tear along the fold, then reinforced it with lace and turned the end over so it's  only about half an inch shorter, won't affect the drape. 

That should work fine.

Warmer today but I was tired, doesn't often happen, but I lay like a sack of sand in the lounge chair on the patio, may have slept, read some of the migration book, and finally got around this evening to some stitching.

The tree is under way, a lot more to happen around the roots, and there will be foliage. I can add to the length of the roots with direct stitching, likewise change the branches. Quite a lot more to do now that it's starting to get going. 

The fluffy mossy stuff is a soft thread, unplied and sort of shredded, then couched down. I discovered it by accident when I unplied the yarn at another point, and the single ply disintegrated, so that was an idea to use here. No idea goes unused. 

I'm working with a piece of glass slid under the page so I don't accidentally stitch it to the next one.  And I notice I'm stitching with either hand, depending on which is best, a bit tricky navigating this piece with two pages done and needing protection, and a length of unworked pages getting in the way.  Mixed dominance is very useful when you're doing things like this, or drawing and painting, switch hands as needed.

Also the other important thing I did was, drumroll, vote! 

Here's the newly designed ballot that the lawsuit was about, candidates in alpha order, no special favored positioning, the abolished County Line now gone. Ding, dong, the line is dead.

The municipal dropbox is close to the Tuesday Knitting Group location, so I'll vote on the way there.

Happy day everyone, I did good things today, as you did too, I expect.

Stitching on a cold wet day

Sunday was cold, rainy and I was back in layers. Ne'er cast a clout till May be out, yes, definitely. 

But it was a great stitching day, with various YouTube channels chatting quietly in the background, Marion in particular sparking new ideas galore, not what she's doing, just the atmosphere of making and her quiet northern voice, my roots calling!

Here are the first two pages, one about chance, one about transparency 

And here's the next page, cut from the linen you saw yesterday, a soft peach pink, probably red onion dye 

Pinned so I can see the outer limits. Size, that is. No outer limits in making.

And here's the palette of colors I'm using for this one 

And the initial couching, roughing in the general idea 

The tree is only anchored with pins right now, and tomorrow I'll be working on it when I finish thinking about it. It anchors foreground, middle ground, background and sky, the usual convention of Western landscapes, which serves me well here.

This is barely begun, and once again the Indian quilting idea has to wait because I need to stitch shapes right now. But there are more pages where that can happen.

When I make the new project bag, the outside will be this linen, there's enough left, and the lining will be pale yellow linen from an old shirt. 

Come to think about it, maybe the bag would be a good place for the Indian quilting, using the linen as the base fabric and cheap and cheerful cotton printed pieces for the patches. Hm. Maybe. 

I'm sure this is wildly exciting to people who don't stitch and are waiting for discussion of the box scores. Happy day everyone, you're not legally required to stitch. They repealed that law a while ago. 

The spag and plantballs was just fine in this freezing weather. I'm making yogurt this evening, maybe soup tomorrow.

Great art making day, also spaghetti

Saturday was cold, later rainy, not a bit springlike, so there was a large bowl of spaghetti with spicy plant-based meatballs. 

Hot peppers, onions, butter and tomato paste, blended with diced tomatoes, made a great sauce, and it was all very welcome. Blueberries and yogurt for dessert.

The main good thing about the day was the number of art ideas jumping at me. This is related to sending artworks to good homes. It leaves space for new ideas which unfailingly show up 

One was how to complete the fabric page. I had a piece on the wall that I've been thinking about deconstructing for ages, and realized the embroidered motifs, natural dyed, stitched onto net, were a natural to overlay on the silk stars. It's about transparency. And yes, it's political. Art is.

So here, deconstructed, is a lovely piece of shibori dyed linen, several freestanding embroidered works, and cheesecloth which is new and clean and might get into the kitchen. The colored thread in the embroideries is also natural dyed. 

And here's where a couple of motifs found a new home.

Then I plan to make a hussif, using some cheap and cheerful cotton printed pieces I found among the stars,  round up my needles from various ragged needle books, and upstairs, and make  places in it for my scissors and useful stitching tools.

Also I'm going to ditch the nasty pink plastic project bag I've been using for knitting, and make something more interesting.

All this happening on an otherwise unpromising day. 

My mail-in primary ballot arrived, where I get to triumphantly vote for Andy Kim for Senate. This will help send a decent man to Washington to replace a shameful one. 

It's also a great effyew to the completely inept and inexperienced governor's wife who tried to run, and couldn't get arrested despite having all the party bosses working it. 

And who inadvertently helped abolish the infamous county Line, the very ballot position advantage the party bosses tried to leverage in her favor. What an own goal. Kim pursued his lawsuit to abolish it and won. 

She's trying to forget she ever tried, total humiliation, well deserved.  Someone who has never run for anything, anything, school board, HOA, library board,  wanting one of the three major key elected offices in the state? Please.

Happy day, everyone, you never know what good things might happen.

May the Fourth be with you!

 Happy Star Wars Day

In other news, the Friday knitting group was just two of us, so I admired the latest grandchild pictures, she continued on the sweater you've seen before and I continued my technicolor spiral sock.

Talk ranged over spacing of children, friends with kids ten years apart, weather, book group selections, unreasonable freecyclers, people who request a change of time/day for established groups, nonworking public clocks, and knitting sleeves.

The weather is cold again so there will be spaghetti and meatballs in future forecasts.

Happy day, everyone, enjoy your weather whatever it's about.